ANIMAL, THE: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
Mild-mannered evidence file clerk Marvin Mange (Rob Schneider) is frustrated. His life is
going nowhere fast and his dream of becoming a "real" police officer is
continually frustrated by his inability to complete the mandatory obstacle course. This
earns him the contempt of the station tough guy, Sgt Sisk (John C McGinley). Marvin’s
other preoccupation is a yearning for environmental activist Rianna (Colleen Haskell).
Left to mind the office one day, Marvin finds himself called out on an emergency. But
things go horribly wrong and Marvin is involved in a car smash. He comes around to find
he’s been put back together by the manic Dr Wilder (Michael Caton), using animal
parts. Soon, he’s having increasing difficulty controlling his animal instincts.

Review by David Edwards:The steady flow of mostly gross movies from ex-Saturday Night Live comedians shows no
sign of abating; but this effort starring Rob Schneider (who brought us Deuce Bigalow:
Male Gigolo) is at least a mildly amusing diversion. The difference between Schneider and
other SNL’ers (like Adam Sandler) is that Schneider has a kind of goofy, almost
innocent, charm that takes the crass edge off many of his jokes.

In The Animal, he plays a guy who’s stitched back together by a mad scientist
using animal parts. Sounds gross; but judging by recent headlines, the day of animal-human
transplant surgery isn’t too far off. This however is no sci fi horror flick,
it’s really an offbeat boy-meets-girl story. Schneider of course is the boy, and the
girl is Colleen Haskell, who shot to fame for being voted off the island in the first
series of Survivor. She doesn’t have to do much – mostly just look good –
as Schneider and his cohorts frolic through the paper-thin plot. The jokes are mostly what
you’d expect from this, Schneider hamming it up as he behaves like a series of
animals. Some of these, such as his takes on cats and dolphins, are funny; but the
inevitable series of mostly crude dog jokes wear thin. There’s also a very curious
and rather tasteless riff on racism that runs through the movie which just isn’t
funny at all. Schneider gives Marvin his trademark sweet-hearted loser appeal; but the
movie is very nearly stolen by John C McGinley as the gung-ho sergeant who’s
determined to take him down, and by Australia’s own Michael Caton as the oddball Dr
Wilder.

For an average movie though, the DVD package is impressive. The feature has been
crisply transferred to DVD and is presented in the original 16:9 widescreen ratio,
enhanced with Dolby 5.1 sound. So the whole thing looks and sounds great. There are plenty
of add-ons included on the disc, including an interview with Schneider that’s funnier
than much of the movie. Many of the deleted scenes are amusing too, although some
commentary from the director on why they were cut would have been useful.

As a DVD package, The Animal is (if you’ll pardon the pun) almost a silk purse
fashioned from a sow’s ear. Despite the fact the film itself is pretty ordinary, the
superior extras on the disc come close to making this one worthwhile.